Papers (Working)

Poverty has many dimensions and each has its own causes and determinants that vary over time. At the conceptional level, there is now a much deeper understanding of the nature and causes of poverty, but in practice, the negative and positive factors that may tend to increase or decrease poverty often operate simultaneously. It is therefore difficult to predict whether a given package of interventions will actually lead to poverty reduction.

The most common indicator of poverty is a pre-determined income level below which a family cannot survive. One dollar per day is widely accepted as the cut-off point to categorise those who are living in extreme poverty. There is also the related concept of consumption based poverty, or the basic needs perspective (minimum food per capita, access to clean drinking water, basic health facilities or primary education).

These supplementary indicators of poverty are dependent on family income, but not entirely. In some countries a given level of per capita income may not be accompanied by corresponding level of food security or access to basic needs. These relationships vary enormously from one country to another. A careful analysis of this relationship and the variation from one country to the other can provide a very good starting point for evolving a national strategy for poverty reduction. The causes of poverty are often structural and inherent. The root of these structural causes lies in the basic social structure of a rural society, with its inequitable distribution of land and a feudal ethnic or tribal system which often perpetuates this inequality Continuing population growth further reduces the per capita land holding or other assets of the family. The poor in any society are not a homogenous group, but an amalgam of different groups each with its own social or ethnic handicaps and political alignments. Women in general are more disadvantaged than menRead More

Delivering substantially increased new and additional, adequate, predictable and sustainable financial resources will have to be a key outcome of the UNFCCC negotiation process towards an international climate change agreement to be achieved in Copenhagen by the end of 2009. Resources are required to assist developing countries in mitigating emissions (incl. REDD) and adapting (incl. insurance) to the adverse consequences of climate change. During the last year, a number of countries have made proposals for instruments that could deliver a certain amount of financial resources.

This briefing paper analyses seven key approaches that have been proposed and judges them against a number of politically relevant criteria. As a conclusion, the international sale of AAUs, through auctioning a share or selling it at a fixed price, appears to be the most favourable option, ideally in combination with approaches to generate resources from the sectors international aviation and maritime transport. However, there are still unanswered legal and technical questions regarding the different proposals which would require further investigation.Read More

Poverty is about politics. Access to governance structures and participation in policy processes has both an instrumental and intrinsic value to the rural poor and rural poor organisations (here after referred to as RP). The desired outcome, it is argued, is pro-poor governance, by which is meant policy processes within which the RP participate and influence and achieve change through policy implementation.
To use the IFAD framework, the primary 'challenge' is access of the rural poor to governance structures and policy processes. However, access to policy processes is necessary but not sufficient. There are four 'sub-challenges'. These are the mobilisation of a RP-led policy narrative, access to and the capacity to engage and influence policy processes and capacity to achieve change via policy implementation. The exact nature of each of these 'sub-challenges' is determined by the interaction of actor-specificity (interests, capacities) and context-specificity (institutions, incentives and constraints).
The various actors involved are likely to have previously established power dynamics and networks dictated by political, economic, social and cultural interactions, which will impact the access and influence that they have to public policy processes in general, and participatory approaches specifically. The impact of participatory processes is thus likely to be greatly intertwined with the overall nature of democratic inclusiveness, political culture and accountability.
It was found in the case studies, that successful RP participation in policy processes is a function of innovation, incentives and inequality. The rural poor - compared to its urban counterpart - faces additional structural constraints (distance, political invisibility, weak/lack of coordination) for mobilising and affecting policy processes. The rural poor also face many of the same issues as its urban counterparts - such as literacy, confidence, resources, institutional resistances and capacity to understand the issues that hinders any participation in high-level technical policy discussions - but do so more acutely due to the prevailing nature and level of rural poverty.
In sum, public policy processes matter for rural poverty reduction. Inclusive democracy has intrinsic value because of poverty-governance linkages (rights, freedoms, voice, participation and public services delivery are common to both discourses). Inclusive democracy is likely to facilitate faster poverty reduction but the rural poor faces additional structural constraints for mobilising and affecting change via participation in the policy processRead More

This country study maps and assesses incentives for retaining heath workers, particularly non-financial incentives. It explores existing policies, their relevance to current factors driving exit and retention, and proposes guidelines for introducing and managing incentives for health worker retention to maximise their positive impact.

Swaziland faces severe shortages of skilled health professionals, with many doctors, nurses, laboratory technicians and social workers emigrating to high income countries. The report found that six factors significantly influenced decisions by health care professionals to either change institution or to actively look for work in a different institution. Factors positively associated with retention were job satisfaction, equality/treatment by employer, job discretion and helping others. Negative factors were the employee's attitude towards their institution and support.
Recommendations for retention of health workers include:

collaboration between the health ministry, employers and the training institutions is needed to develop management training programmes for front line managers, as well as changes in the payment system, such as output-related payments;

government needs to introduce additional annual leave days, either paid or unpaid; additional sick leave or carers' leave; flexible working times and specialist training to meet employee interests;

health institutions need to show employees they are valued and treat them with respect;

unions and health institutions must engage in frank and open discussion as to whether collective agreements present recruitment and/or retention barriers.

These issues are relevant in most developing countries and especially in mountain areas, where not only do countries face shortages in the country as a whole, but finds it very different to find health workers willing to live in the remote areasRead More

Increased regional inequality has been a major concern in many emerging economies like China, India, Vietnam and Thailand. However, even a large inequality is observed within the lagging regions. The objective of this paper is to look into what are the sources of within region inequality using the community surveys and a census type of households in Western China. This snapshot view of inequality within and between rural villages in western China is based on a census-type household survey in three administrative villages and a sampling survey of 286 natural villages in the poor province of Guizhou in 2004. In contrast to coastal regions, nonfarm income is distributed unevenly in this inland western region. This accounts for the largest share of overall income inequality. But agriculture is still the rural people’s major source of livelihood in this particular location. On the expenditure side, health care is one of the most important sources of inequality. Because rural income is strongly related to human capital, the uneven access to health care will translate into a larger income gap in the long run. The analysis based on the natural village survey indicates that income varies widely across villages. Access to infrastructure and markets, education and political participation explain most of this variation.
These findings have important implications on the future development strategy in promoting lagging regions development and poverty reduction. While the overall economic development will be the main instrument to bring the majority poor out of poverty, a targeted approach has become increasingly crucial in helping the poor villages and households. It is critical to understand why these villages and households can not participate in the growth process and how development programs and various transfer programmes help them to overcome the constraints they faceRead More

With high population density and limited land availability, Vietnam’s Red River Delta is undergoing a major transformation as its economic base moves away from subsistence farming towards intensive, high-value food production for export and local urban markets and nonfarm employment. This paper describes the changing livelihoods of the residents of two villages that represent two different pathways to local economic development. One village relies primarily on agricultural intensification and diversification, although in combination with nonfarm activities. These nonfarm activities are either supplementary (such as handicraft production and seasonal migration) or related to farming, such as provision of agricultural services, transport and trade of agricultural produce. To a large extent, it is this nonfarm income that allows investment in agriculture at the household level. Residents of the second village, although nominally still owning rice farms, have effectively moved out of agriculture and engage almost exclusively in handicraft production.
Despite these major differences, there are also important similarities between the two villages. First, much of their recent economic development is linked to access to markets — including proximity to local urban centers and to Hanoi (where demand from urban consumers and from exporting enterprises has increased substantially), a vastly improved road and transport system, and an excellent communications infrastructure. Second, each village has developed forward and backward linkages with their main production sector. Last but not least, local authorities have played an important role in supporting local economic development, providing infrastructure, training for handicraft production, and inputs for farmers. The long-term sustainability of economic growth and poverty reduction in the Red River Delta will largely depend on strengthening rural-urban linkages. This includes adopting regulations on land use that allow farmers to better respond to growing urban demand for high-value produce; incorporate more explicitly the needs of the handicraft micro-enterprises in existing and future policies and plans for rural industrialisation; recognise and support the role of seasonal migration in rural local economic development; and address the changing planning and natural resource management needs of these urbanising villagesRead More

Viet Nam has undergone a profound transformation in recent years and, as a result of a series of macroeconomic and institutional reforms since 1986, it has made substantial progress toward becoming a market economy. As this transition continues, Viet Nam faces the challenge of formulating and implementing a growth strategy which is both economically and politically feasible. Critical to this growth strategy is the role of agriculture and, within agriculture, the development of an efficient rice marketing system.
The emergence of Viet Nam as a major rice exporter has raised a number of important policy questions.

Will the country be able to continue its impressive growth?

How far has Viet Nam moved along the path toward a market economy?

What is the role of the government in the development of a rice market economy?

What is the best way to promote food security?

The paper addresses these issues and report the results of a study conducted by IFPRI for the Asian Development Bank in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of the Government of Viet Nam. The study is based on extensive data collection from marketing agents (farmers, traders, millers, state owned enterprises, and exporters) conducted during 1995 and 1996Read More